A cybersecurity czar has been a long-established presence in US government – until recently. Against a rising tide of attacks on the nation's infrastructure and election systems, Donald Trump eliminated the post through an executive order in May.
As if to highlight the deficiency of such a move, just two months later the US …

Stupidity or cunning?

What serves Trump's interests more? Does this serve the Republicans better than having a cyber-czar? Are they happy but going along, or unhappy and going along, because they seem to have lost the use of their spines and bollocks?

Re: Stupidity or cunning?

Re: Stupidity or cunning?

I suspect you'll see this position ('security czar' or whatever) move into a more military/CIA context, rather than 'yet another meaningless bureaucrat'. With 1300 or so things left out of 3000 or so, sounds to me like it wasn't working very well.

Yes. It's my guess that last May Trump decided that JUST having a 'security czar' wasn't working. He's a "results" kind of guy, after all. So buh-bye to the 'not working' bureaucracy. What replaces it might just be so secret it can't be mentioned.

yeah, yeah, the wishful/hopeful/pipe-dream crowd [aka howler monkeys] will all downvote me for stating the obvious, and not using it as yet another opportunity for Trump's enemies to sling poo at him like a bunch of howler monkeys. Yeah, whoopee twiddle. badge of honor!

Re: Stupidity or cunning?

like the people he was going to appoint which are just air

November 23, 2016

We have many people for every job. I mean no matter what the job is, we have many incredible people. I think, [...] The quality of the people is very good. ... We’re trying very hard to get the best people. Not necessarily people that will be the most politically correct people, because that hasn’t been working. So we have really experts in the field. Some are known and some are not known, but they’re known within their field as being the best. That’s very important to me.

This fits in well...

...with the rumours of kompromat. I guess I'd like to be strong enough to call the bluff and allow the release of the pee tapes. I know for sure that Trump isn't strong enough and prefers to risk his country rather than his reputation.

Re: This fits in well...

Oh please, the "pee tapes" aren't the kompromat. When you have a man with no shame, but a very fragile ego that is dependent on an image of very rich and very successful the only kompromat you could possibly have on him is evidence that shows that his money and success came from illegal means. Real, indisputable evidence, with documents, tapes, etc. Which I'm sure Putin has had for many years and Mueller has been slowly assembling.

The biggest coup for Mueller's investigation wasn't Manafort or any of the other big fish who made the news, but the CFO of Trump's company since the 70s (back when his dad ran it) who recently agreed to cooperate. He's probably laid out the whole history of the dirty business, and now Mueller's team is busy chasing down documents, witness statements etc. to prove what he's told them.

There More than One Way to Skin a Skunk RAT and Address a Virtual Land Grab

Trump's May decision and this report taken together suggest that if the West was already slipping behind in the cyber war, things can only get worse now that the supposed leader of the free world has deliberately, and carelessly, taken his eye off the ball on the home front.

That assessment would only be true if Western leadership is/was Reliant on and Implaccably Wedded to Corrupted and/or Defective USAsian or USAlien Interests slipping behind in the Vast Planes of CyberWare which are Capable of Delivering and Maintaining/Servering and Servicing Unlimited .... Limitless Future Plains for Colonisation of Virtual Realities with SMARTR Populations ..... which you might like to think would include you.

It's just a figurehead

"just two months later the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) told politicians that Uncle Sam had failed to implement 1,000 cyber protection recommendations from a list of 3,000 made since 2010"

Mean ol' Trump axed the figurehead, not the division. So they ignored 1/3 of the suggestions made while they had a "czar." Does that sound like the person really made a difference? The departments and the IT staff that did these jobs are still there. They're just not paying a ridiculous salary for a famous name who can go to meetings and look important.

Re: It's just a figurehead

I had wondered the same thing. Perhaps by having a figurehead the other lazy & corrupt agencies could point to, those other agencies figured they couldn't be arsed to think about security concerns. Realistically it should be an integral part of every agency's infrastructure, and eliminating a convenient patsy means they'd have to get off their asses and do the job themselves.

Re: It's just a figurehead

One could argue all the political appointees are figureheads, and ax his whole cabinet. If he's going to ax a useless "czar", why not ax the drug czar? Talk about useless, the "drug war" is stupid and can never be won, as can be demonstrated by the decades of fighting it with zero success (other than for the drug companies, who managed to steal much of the heroin revenue in the US by providing "legal" opiods in vast quantities and making our insurance pay for them - I'm sure they'd love to come up with a way to patent THC and take all the marijuana revenue next)

Trump's axing of cyber czar role has left more gaping holes in US defence

the long read to day in the Gruniad is worth a read. Trump doesn't know what he's doing and really doesn't care. Seems doubtful the Russian's control him he's just too unstable, more likely they would seen to control those who influence him.

So you are saying that the purpose of the President is to think he has all the power in the world but is actually a poor deluded narcissist whose only job is to distract attention from the person who really makes all the decisions?

I think my pussy cat would like some fish, or at least I think that I think that. Perhaps the pussycat isn't real ...

The President in particular is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. (DA - HHGTTG 1)

so that if in the upcoming elections his party doesn't manage to produce decent results he will claim that all of the areas where they failed were hacked by mysterious outside forces (aka china or whoever trump has fallen out with by then).

note that he has already set the stage for this by claiming to the security council that china is trying to influence the results because they don't want him in power.

Hillary, The Loser! Nah, The Great One would not repeat a loser strategy and become associated with it, lest it rubs off on his greatness. No big thinking needed: Donald Trump is axing the Cyber Czar just because it is (he thinks) something Obama invented.

Re: The sad thing is

Chinese interference

also love the fact that he's stating that theres Chinese interference in 2018 elections that haven't even happened yet but refuses the idea that the Russians could have possibly meddled in his election (using the exact same methods/tools etc). go figure.

the job of Cyber-Czar sounds interesting...I could do it - but not with Trump as my boss. No thanks. I'd actually want to get things done.

Is there any evidence that this position has been beneficial for security? It would appear not. Consider that this organisation completely missed the mass illegal surveillance by the "security" agencies and the hacking of the election.

"deliberately, and carelessly"

deliberately, and carelessly, taken his eye off the ball

Well, deliberately anyway. Farts actions are not necessarily careless. They should be if there is any intention of benefitting his country. His actions are very calculated - perhaps not by him though...

Six letter words

Nothing new

DHS was caught not updating their systems just last month. This is something the U.S Government has failed at since President Regan first saw the movie War Games and asked if it was possible.

The whole nonsense with our Government taking Kaspersky off their systems (which they are STILL struggling with) and Russia hacking, was just a diversion to cover up the fact that they can't secure an unplugged Playstation.

Trump did the correct thing here. The cybersecurity tsar position didn't wield much authority; and therefore, not very effective at getting some things accomplished. It's not a position requiring congressional approval.

The job now falls on Homeland Security, which wields a lot more authority when it comes to auditing and review. Homeland Security can now put the entire network infrastructure and operations along side many other critical systems in order to hand down major penalties to government agencies and their management.

So before Trump bashers start repeating the idiocy of politics--and you really should be smarter than this. You should look at the entire picture, and not just the rants and raves of a few politicians from the DNC (who need to call on their assistants to log themselves in to their computers).

The cyber tsar position was just another one of these "I'm doing something about it" jobs, without any teeth. They weren't in charge of anything but charts and PowerPoint. It is a job which costs taxpayers money, and does little. Even USCERT didn't fall within the grasp of the job, if this tells you anything.